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Sounds like good public policy! Considering real wages for most Americans have been stagnant for decades, the government should drive wages higher. https://www

by apozem 5y ago

Sounds like good public policy! Considering real wages for most Americans have been stagnant for decades, the government should drive wages higher. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

throwkeep 5y ago
It's not that simple. Higher labor costs is good for corporations because they can afford it, while it wipes out their competition. Small businesses don't have the benefits of scale and are already in survival mode. Also, increased labor costs necessarily means higher prices for goods. Which affects the poor more than the rich. Does it matter to the rich if a gallon of milk or gas goes up 2x? No, they won't even notice. But the poor sure will.
- rStar 5y ago
  everything in this society is good for corporations because they own the politicians and write all of the laws. so it’s a competition between corporations who all want to pay below a living wage. in this case the employees are rational actors waiting for what they consider value. corporations can either not have employees, pay their employees what it costs to get them to walk in the door in the morning, or declare war on humanity and search out the least self respecting people on the planet to be wage slaves on their race to the bottom.
- mijamo 5y ago
  I don't think that's true. Small business usually have less salaries because there is no corporate overhead and a big part of the staff is the owners who are not paid through salaries but dividends. Also small business often pay more than big corporation for low level jobs because they cannot afford the same turnover, and salary increases tend to be proportionally higher for the very lowest salaries than those just above (you go from 10 to 12 for instance, but only from 12 to 14 which is relatively smaller increase).
hackeraccount 5y ago
There's something wrong with the logic though right? I mean, imagine the Government offered everyone a job doing nothing for $100,000.00 a year. What would happen? Forget about inflation (imagine we import everything and the world never becomes tired of dollars). Why would McDonald's raise wages to that amount? Why would anyone offer a job that earned the job creator less the 100,000? It seems like the most likely outcome would be that lower paying jobs would disappear not that they would suddenly start paying out more. Either that or the amount of productivity from those jobs would go above that 100,000 amount - which seems functionally the same as saying the jobs would disappear because if you're working at a restaurant generating that much revenue you're doing something far different then the summer job I had.

by apozem 5y ago

throwkeep 5y ago

It's not that simple. Higher labor costs is good for corporations because they can afford it, while it wipes out their competition. Small businesses don't have the benefits of scale and are already in survival mode. Also, increased labor costs necessarily means higher prices for goods. Which affects the poor more than the rich. Does it matter to the rich if a gallon of milk or gas goes up 2x? No, they won't even notice. But the poor sure will.

rStar 5y ago
everything in this society is good for corporations because they own the politicians and write all of the laws. so it’s a competition between corporations who all want to pay below a living wage. in this case the employees are rational actors waiting for what they consider value. corporations can either not have employees, pay their employees what it costs to get them to walk in the door in the morning, or declare war on humanity and search out the least self respecting people on the planet to be wage slaves on their race to the bottom.
mijamo 5y ago
I don't think that's true. Small business usually have less salaries because there is no corporate overhead and a big part of the staff is the owners who are not paid through salaries but dividends. Also small business often pay more than big corporation for low level jobs because they cannot afford the same turnover, and salary increases tend to be proportionally higher for the very lowest salaries than those just above (you go from 10 to 12 for instance, but only from 12 to 14 which is relatively smaller increase).

hackeraccount 5y ago

There's something wrong with the logic though right? I mean, imagine the Government offered everyone a job doing nothing for $100,000.00 a year. What would happen? Forget about inflation (imagine we import everything and the world never becomes tired of dollars). Why would McDonald's raise wages to that amount? Why would anyone offer a job that earned the job creator less the 100,000? It seems like the most likely outcome would be that lower paying jobs would disappear not that they would suddenly start paying out more. Either that or the amount of productivity from those jobs would go above that 100,000 amount - which seems functionally the same as saying the jobs would disappear because if you're working at a restaurant generating that much revenue you're doing something far different then the summer job I had.